


and a little terrible, then (part two)

by missingmymothership



Series: Seine Net [2]
Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Other, Polyamory, Pre-Apocalypse, Still too many OCs, the Park family has not been forgotten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-04-28 19:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14456583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingmymothership/pseuds/missingmymothership
Summary: The adventure continues.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing this by the seat of my pants, guys. Updates will be sporadic at best.
> 
> Enjoy!!

_The look-out man will see some lakes of milk-color light on the sea's night-purple; he points and the helmsman  
Turns the dark prow, the motorboat circles the gleaming shoal and drifts out her seine-net._

_The Purse Seine_  
Robinson Jeffers

When Waylon opened his eyes, he found himself surrounded by curtains. Vaguely he could feel his shoulder--it was an odd, messy pain, but one that was far away and therefore forgettable. He glanced up at the ceiling--foam tiles. Oh, he was in the hospital, wasn’t he? He looked down at his hands. Blinked. His fingers were scraped up, and the mild, cold pinch of the IV lines resounded dully up his arms. Maybe he should count them. One of them was red. Were they giving him blood?

A woman in scrubs sat by the curtains. She was out of focus, so he couldn’t see her face, but her skin was the same shade of dark as Lisa’s and for a second he thought...

The nurse got closer. It was difficult to focus on her whole face, but the individual features were wrong anyway. Her hair was too short, her nose too narrow. Her eyes weren’t the right brown. 

Belatedly Waylon realized they must have given him some kind of pain medication. He grimaced.

“You want some ice?” she asked. Not!Lisa smiled, and she was missing the gap in Lisa’s grin.

His throat was too dry. He nodded, and felt an ache deep in the muscles of his neck. Funny that he hadn’t noticed it before.

“You were in surgery.” Her voice was calm, and sweet. “They had to intubate you, so don’t try to talk, okay?” She moved up close to his bedside. A paper cup appeared in her hands, and she spooned tiny chips of cold and wet--ice--into his mouth with a warm plastic spoon.

Waylon felt his eyes settle closed again. He went with it. There were nice people here, after all. He could let his guard down. He wasn’t sure why it was up in the first place.

*  
~

Miles bared his teeth. “No, I don’t have an ID.”

The receptionist just looked at him.

He tried to call up the chill and menace of the Walrider, but there was just an ache where it wasn’t. Fuck. “Please.”

“If you can’t prove you’re a family member, I can’t let you into the ICU.”

He wanted to cry, just a little bit. But he didn’t have time to. Fuck, he used to be a journalist--he used to get into everything with an easy smile and an assured confidence that yes, he was supposed to be there.

Miles didn’t have time for this, so he left the desk and went down the hall, frantically trying to think of--oh. That might work. He took a look at the map by the elevator. There was another way to access the wing. Obviously there would be reception on that side too, but his brain was working doubletime to come up with a story to fit his plan. He punched the button and waited for the elevator.

Once inside, he took it one floor down and patted his jeans pockets. Yep, he had his keys. Loose change clinked and rattled. No wallet though, just cash in a binder clip. Perfect.

Miles checked the map of this floor. There was a restroom off to one side and he rushed to it, splashed water on his face, dabbed it around his temples, then wet his shirt collar and under his arms, then carefully dried off only the backs of his hands. Miles looked at himself in the mirror. Okay. He looked sweaty. Just this side of gross. Now he just had to not fuck this up.

He took the stairs this time, up to the other side of the ICU wing; Miles jogged up to the other receptionist, who looked up and frowned. 

“Hi,” he panted. “I just got a call that my mom’s here? I--” and here he put on his best embarrassed face for a second and wiped his damp face with a shirtsleeve, “I drove from Gilroy as soon as I heard.”

The receptionist’s gaze softened. “What’s her name?”

“Iyeong Yi.”

She looked down at the computer monitor and typed in what he assumed was his mother’s name. He could only hope she’d had her ID on her. “May I see an ID, please?”

He nodded, then started digging through his pockets. Keys, out on the counter. He dug up a few quarters and a lone dime. The clip with his cash. Kept searching his pockets. “It’s gotta be in here,” he said through his teeth. Hopefully she’d think he sounded anxious rather than angry.

“Sir?”

“I think I left it--crap, I left it at home.” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “I must’ve been so scared for her I just. Ah, crap.” He pressed his lips together.

The receptionist chewed the end of a pen for a moment. “Go on in.”

He tried to look more shocked than smug. “Really?”

“Yeah, go,” she said. “Just don’t tell anyone I let you in.”

Miles flashed her what he hoped was a brilliant grin, collected the miscellaneous stuff from the counter, and rushed in.

The ICU looked deserted. There wasn’t even a nurse at the front station. Not good.

Most of the little cubicles were empty as he limped past, just beds and empty IV stands. Then he heard rustling, and froze. 

He got down low and peered around the corner of the nearest cubicle. Nothing. He slowly, slowly got himself to the next one. A large man-- _Walker, Walker Walker Walker,_ his brain supplied unhelpfully--was hunched over the bed like he was holding someone down. Miles couldn’t see much more, but felt a spike of fear just the same. Was it his mother? Waylon? Regardless, he had to act fast.

There was no chance of him outmaneuvering the large man, nor yanking him away from the bed--he wasn’t fast enough or strong enough. It was like dealing with a Variant. 

What could he use to distract him? Miles looked around wildly--what could he use?

The IV stand. He grabbed it--it was heavier than he’d expected and he almost dropped it--and hurled it down the long corridor. Didn’t go very far, but it’d buy him some time.

The man ducked out of the cubicle. Miles pressed himself up under the hospital bed to the sound of very male gasping. A pillow went flying. He peeked into the cubicle. Waylon, looking deathly pale, was still breathing hard.

Miles’ mother was still missing. Had they taken her?

Shit, the man was coming back. Miles didn’t have a weapon. Shit. 

He staggered to his feet--at least he could try to shove the man away from Waylon--and the man drew a pistol. Miles couldn’t even blink before a lightning-crack-bang illuminated the room and set his ears ringing, and suddenly he was on his side, thick black ooze pouring from his chest. The man put another three bullets into him, and it _hurt_ like it hadn’t when he’d been shot by Wernicke’s men. A spike of terror went through him: with the Walrider gone, could Miles die? For real? Anxiety fluttered in his chest.

He rolled onto his stomach. The black pooled up, soaked his shirt. Apparently he’d just bleed a lot.

A crash behind him.

Then, down the hall, he heard his mother scream.

Fuck, sorry Park. Mom came first, always. Always.

Miles dragged himself up, slipping a little in the wasted nanites, and tasted metal. He spat out a gob of black. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Waylon punch the large man in the nose--thank fuck, one fewer thing to worry about--and he took off running, boots squeaking against the linoleum floor.

Not in the room to his left, not in the cubicle to his right. The nurses’ station he passed next was as empty as the first. Where the fuck was his mother?? Another female yell joined Iyeong’s and he took another left to find a woman in a suit attempting to force his mother back onto the hospital bed.

Miles didn’t think, he just _moved,_ the back of his mind half-expecting the Walrider to erupt from his pores, and he snarled and grabbed the woman by the shoulders, wrenching her off his mother. But she twisted in Miles’ grip and swung around like a pendulum, pivoting him off-balance. She shoved him in the chest, hard. He fell, pain flashing bright around his wounds.

The woman pinned him with a stiletto grinding into his sternum. Fuck, it hurt like he wasn’t dead. Her other foot sailed towards his chin and he felt his head snap back, felt his skull crack against the tile. Miles couldn’t help it: he let out a whimper and scrabbled for a hold on her leg.

~

Yi Iyeong was ruthless, pragmatic, and just a little bit bloodthirsty: all things a good mother should be. And it was her leg that was hurt, not her arm or her brain, so when she saw Miles go down, she unscrewed her heavy antibiotic pump and hurled it at the woman’s back. It hit her between the shoulderblades and she staggered forward with a wheeze.

Her son popped up from where he’d been pinned, then drove his shoulder into the woman’s waist and tackled her to the floor. Iyeong couldn’t see what was happening now, but she heard Miles yell and the sound of a gunshot. Her heart beat up into her throat--but no, she’d just gotten her son back; no way in hell would he be taken from her like this--and burned rage into her mouth.

Iyeong lurched to her feet, ignoring the sudden tearing sharpness in her calf, and saw the woman on her side, chest heaving, arms in perfect alignment with the little revolver in her hands. She went cold when she saw it had hit Miles square in the chest, that he was struggling to get up but couldn’t seem to get the leverage to roll over. Her mind worked quick: he was still alive. Thank God. Had the bullet severed a crucial muscle group? Probably. What kind of attack would get this bitch away from her son? She had half a second before the woman noticed--

Before the half second was up, the gun was pointed at her. Iyeong froze. This woman was quicker than she’d estimated.

The woman spat something from the side of her mouth--a tooth? “Don’t try _shit_ with me.”

A big man limped in, the whistleblower unconscious under his arm and a Beretta tight in his grip. “Ms. Glick? What do we do now?”

The woman--Glick--grimaced. She was missing half a tooth, not the whole thing. That must hurt.

Good.

Glick gave the man a flat look. “We made too much of a racket for this to go away quietly. This one,” she gestured to Iyeong, “might still be useful, but--” She stopped, seeming to consider for a moment, keeping her eyes on Iyeong the whole time. “You can shoot Park in the head if they don’t recycle him at HQ. Upshur’s still out of commission. The targeted EMP obviously worked. So we can take him, and we don’t have to worry about keeping the Walrider in line, which means,” and here she raised her eyebrows, “that this lady here isn’t the priority. You can shoot her too, later.”

The Walrider? Iyeong recalled Miles saying he had something Murkoff wanted, and she remembered from all the documentaries that there was a project so lucrative it was worth torturing people for. Nobody could quite suss out what the project was, or what the name meant, even during the trials.

“We’re taking them all?” asked the big man.

“Uh-huh,” said Glick, sounding a little exasperated.

Miles, from the floor, growled. “No. You’re not.”

Glick was clearly concealing a grin when she stood and nudged him with a toe. “I’ve met scarier things than you, honey.” She looked at the big man. “Kay Stevie, let’s go.”

~

Connie had just walked up to check in at the nurses’ station for her shift list when she heard the gunshot--then three more. What the fuck was happening?? 

That didn’t matter. What mattered was that she called the police, and now.

Her shaking hands dropped her phone and it cracked painfully loud across the floor. She’d dropped to her knees to salvage it when she heard screaming. Saliva flooded her mouth and her heart dropped through her ankles. Those were her patients. But what was she gonna do?

Fuck. She was gonna call the police. She gingerly picked up the phone. Several large chunks came shattering off--but would it still work? A crash from down the hall. Connie froze and realized she needed to get out of the open, dammit, was she an idiot? She’d been trained for this.

Who else was showing up for the night shift?

Would she have time to make it to the door?

Fuck, another yell. She dove behind the counter, and under the overhang of the counter she tried her phone. It sputtered to life.

Connie let out a shaky sigh, relieved, then another gunshot jolted her and her head slammed against the counter. Sharp pain from her thumb barely registered, but she’d cut it on her phone, hadn’t she? She wanted to cry. She wanted to cry. She wanted to go home. She wished she’d called in sick. Dammit, she was shaking so bad, terror knocking around in her throat. Somebody else had to have heard this, right? 

She tapped the call icon once her phone unlocked.

She tapped the keypad icon.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. The part of her screen where the 9 should be was shattered out. Useless fucking--Nobody was coming because she couldn’t call for help.

Somebody else had to have heard this, they had to--

And that was when she heard high heels, their telltale sound dulled by the linoleum, and a much heavier person in squeaky sneakers.

“How’re we gonna explain this to the people out front, Ms. Glick?”

A long pause, then a woman (Ms. Glick?) spoke. “The badges, Stevie. We’re cops right now.”

“Oh.”

So...these people were posing as police? They would have needed a solid reference from someone official to get up here. That sent a chill through Connie. Who were they with?

An exasperated sigh. “Can’t believe I’m almost wishing for Marion.” Another step, and then the sound of someone crumpling to the floor. “What are you doing?”

Another woman’s voice, barely concealing rage: “They just took a bullet out from my calf. I can’t walk.”

“You can walk just fine,” said the first woman. “Don’t play with me.”

A very male scream cut through the air just as the last word faded.

Several things happened at once. Someone else hit the floor. The first woman shouted “Shit!” and a revolver cocked. Connie almost didn’t brace for the shot. It took a chunk out of the counter. She got down farther, phone forgotten, and peeked out from the edge of the counter along the floor.

She looked just in time to see a sharp-looking woman in a suit cock the revolver again and aim at a wiry man who was--sliding? His right leg was an empty space below the knee and he slid one-legged for cover around the counter--but someone behind the suited woman (the second woman? Connie had a shit angle) shoved her and and the revolver swung and the shot went wide. Connie noticed the big man when his throat opened in an explosion of blood, and he dropped something, but she couldn’t see what.

Some of the blood got on her nose. He went down with a gurgling, choking sound and she ducked back behind the counter, acid rising in her throat. The blood was warm, and cooled quickly.

Connie had blood on her nose. Sure, she’d worked in the ICU for years, but never had the blood of anyone she didn’t want to help on her skin. She choked back vomit. Not now. She couldn’t risk being noticed.

A man dragged himself past her hiding spot and stopped, lying like a ragdoll, in the gap between the counter and the wall. If someone saw him and picked him up--fuck, he’d get her killed--

Oh god, he was absolutely covered in blood and something that looked like tar. The tar leaked from his eyes and nose and--were those gunshot wounds? Was he the person they’d been shooting?

Connie knew she should help him but she was frozen. Her body literally wouldn’t move, even when she wanted to wipe the blood from her face.

She heard another shot and someone running, bursting through a door and clicking away on high heels.

Quiet, except for the occasional gurgle and gasp from the big man. Connie wasn’t going to touch him, especially when she peeked out and saw the gun in his hand too.

Was the suited woman gone?

The man opened his eyes, glanced over, and _grinned_ at her. Then he turned his eyes to the ceiling and _sat up._ His grin faded. “Ma, you okay?”

“I’m fine, Peach,” said the voice of the second woman. “Are you okay?”

“Park?” he called next. She noticed he didn’t answer the woman.

A groan from the other side of the counter. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

The man used the counter to pull himself up--how was he standing? He had five holes in his shirt.

A small woman came rushing over. “Miles!” She grabbed him by the shoulders. “Miles, you shouldn’t be up.”

Connie agreed, but it was like her mouth was glued shut.

“I’m okay, Mom.” He shook himself from her grip and limped around the counter. He pulled up the wiry man. “Park, anything else hurt?”

“What happened to you?”

“I’m fine.”

“But you--and the Walrider--why didn’t you just--”

“Not here.” Was he going to say anything about Connie? “It’s obviously not safe. Let’s get moving.”

“Our clothes--”

Connie hadn’t even noticed, but the small woman was in a gown, and so the wiry man must be as well.

“Your bags are still in the truck. Let’s go. Before she comes back. None of us is moving at top speed right now.” A cough, and she saw a spatter of that tarry stuff hit the counter and ooze over its edge. It made Connie feel sick.

The wiry man spoke. “I don’t have my leg.”

“Waylon, we can’t--”

The woman interrupted. “Miles, what’s going on?”

“Tell you in the car. Let’s _go._ ”

The minute they’d hobbled out the door, Connie curled up on her side and started to sob.

~  
*

Once Miles had changed into something less bloody, he grabbed Waylon, who had a white-knuckle grip on his cane, and they went to secure a room at a questionable motel. Waylon had a driver’s license from some kind of witness protection thing, and the guy at the front didn’t look at them funny, not like he’d seen him somewhere like the news. It was almost too convenient, but they were all bone-tired and they couldn’t think about it any longer.

They helped his mother out of the truck and into one of the eight motel rooms, and she and Waylon collapsed on the two doubles almost immediately.

Miles grimaced and went to take a shower. Alone. Alone in his head. He was alone.

Where was the Walrider?

He killed a massive spider in the bathtub with a towel, and undressed. He took a moment, and started the shower. It was still cold when Miles got in, but he soaped up anyway with some soap the owners of this motel had obviously stolen from a chain hotel--it had the name printed right on the package. He was too exhausted to crack a smile, but his (empty, empty, alone) mind was amused.

Miles inspected his chest. Other than the new holes being purple and inflamed, he didn’t see much damage--though he couldn’t check the exit wounds.

Heh. Not like it’d kill him anyway.

As he washed off, he considered that the Walrider might not actually be gone. After all, he was still walking, and the gunshots hadn’t put him down permanently. It might still be around. Just...dormant?

Miles rinsed his mouth and turned off the water. If it was dormant, why...?

It was still cathartic to sigh, so he did. Now wasn’t the time to overthink. Now was the time to pretend to sleep so he didn’t worry his mother, and, while dressing he realized, maybe get these two some breakfast, or at least a soda to keep their blood sugar up. It was dark out.

Miles walked out into the room, where Waylon was already snoring, and he turned to look at his mother. She smiled sleepily at him. “Come here, Peach,” she said in Korean.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and fell into the familiar language with her. “You hurting, ‘Ma?”

“Not much, baby. What’s on your mind?”

“What?”

“Don’t try to play dumb with me. What are you thinking about?”

Miles felt his shoulders slump. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She nodded. “Come here.”

“I am here.”

His mother raised a single eyebrow at him. “I haven’t seen my son in months, and I want a good hug.”

God, that sounded nice. But it didn’t feel right--it felt like he’d changed too much, like he would hurt her just by lying down. Like he couldn’t do this the way he used to because he couldn’t feel the way he used to.

Iyeong saw his hesitation, apparently, because she sat up and rested her chin on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Miles.” Then it was like she’d read his mind: “You’re my son. I made you--I’m not going to stop loving you because you’re a little different.”

She didn’t know the extent of it, though, and if she did--

“No matter what. If you turned into a polar bear, and you were the meanest bear I’d ever seen,” his mother murmured, and she was almost quoting his favorite childhood book, “and you had sharp claws and big teeth, and you chased me into my house and I cried, I would love you. Because you’d still be you.”

“‘Ma, I’m not me.”

She drew away and studied him for a moment. Then she pinched his cheeks and pulled them. “You still have the same cheeks.”

“‘Ma--”

She touched his nose gently. “Same nose.”

“But--”

“No matter what this...Walrider thing is, what the Swarm is...” she sighed gently. “I don’t know anything about it, and I can’t guess much more than that it’s what Murkoff made and what they want back from you. And I can’t lie and tell you you’re not different from the Miles I knew. But,” and here she stroked his hair, “I still love you. You’re still my son.”

He swallowed hard, and when he spoke his voice was rusty. “Are you sure?”

“Always.”

That was all Miles needed, and he let her pull him into a hug.

The soothed feeling that settled over his skin right then felt like a piece of broken china slotting into its place in a larger cup.

*  
~

Iyeong watched her son leave the room.

She never thought she would be afraid of her own child, but the corpse-smell of his skin when they hugged and the coldness in his eyes in the hospital--it wasn’t Miles. Not the Miles she knew. It made her sick to think of it. For a moment, Iyeong wanted to rid herself of her attachment to her son. She wanted to sever her love and let it wither.

But being scared wasn’t an excuse to stop loving him. He was still her flesh and blood.

Iyeong just needed time to grieve, and to get used to the fact that something new and terrifying had replaced what she’d lost.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. This was what she had. Iyeong had always been pragmatic to a fault; she would make do.


	2. Announcement

Hey all,

First, I wanted to apologize for leaving this fic unfinished for so long. There were a few reasons for that, though: I’m a busy student, I have major health issues, and I just wasn’t satisfied with the way I was telling this story. There were so many things that hit me at once, and the way I felt about the story, and my writing in general, was the straw that broke the camel’s back, to use the cliche. 

With all this in mind, I wanted to let you all know that I’m taking some time over the next few months to completely overhaul and rewrite this series. I’ll be creating a new folder for it—and, for anyone not subscribed to me as an author (which you certainly don’t have to be!!) when I finally post what I have, I’ll make another announcement here. 

Thank you to everyone who has sent me encouraging comments, and thank you to m_izar for creating such a loving and thorough translation of the work! Please be patient with me, but this will happen! Love to you all,

missingmymothership

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me at lamby-grahamy on tumblr!


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